VA - Bartók: Orchestral Works (Rafael Kubelik, Herbert von Karajan, etc.) (2024)

"Les Indispensables de Diapason - Diapason's Selections" is a series in which Diapason, a world-renowned French magazine specializing in classical music, selects historically great performances of masterpieces that shine in music history, remasters them, and reprints them. The 173rd volume of the series is a collection of orchestral works by Hungarian composer Bartók, who was also active as a concert pianist and ethnomusicologist!

In 1943, Koussevitzky, who was then the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, commissioned Bartók to compose his masterpiece "Concerto for Orchestra" in his later years to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his appointment as music director and as a piece in memory of his late wife Natalia.

Of the many recordings, the one selected for this album is the 1958 recording by Kubelik and the Royal Philharmonic. The couplings are one of Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic's earliest recordings, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Sz.106, which was commissioned for the 10th anniversary concert of the Basel Chamber Orchestra led by Paul Sacher, from 1960, and Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet and Piano Sz.111, which was composed at the request of Benny Goodman, also known as the "King of Swing."

What's more, the album combines a recording of Bartók's own piano playing with the famous Hungarian violinist Josef Szigeti and Benny Goodman on clarinet, a splendid collaboration.